Interesting and informative, but incomplete.
If you want to stop browser-installed spyware,
stop using Internet Explorer!
Seriously. There is absolutely no reason to be using IE, except for the increasingly rare site that you just must visit which uses ActiveX or some other MS quagmire. This is obviously just one geek's opinion, but why spend all those hours removing startup apps, tweaking Windows, just to turn around and install a bunch of programs that usurp your resources to compensate for a crappy browser?
Anyway, once you start actually using something like Firefox, you'll never turn back.